So I returned early to New Delhi this summer. I had to start work early so Libby and the kids stayed in KY for 2 more weeks. They just arrived 2 days back and now I have re-jetlagged (is that a word?) with them. Tolan took a 4 hour nap this afternoon. He was almost unwakable! Here is is asleep in this chair in our house. If you know Tolan, you know he does not do this often!
This course gave me great insight into the mind of the teachers with regard to technology. It was a great reminder of the broad range of ideas and skills that our teachers have. I particularly enjoyed watching teachers realize the power of the personal learning network. It seems to me that many teachers, before this course, would not have thought to create a PLN. Personally it challenged me to expand my PLN and think of new ways to use it. There are certain things I can just Google and get enough information to move forward, but there are plenty of things that I need personal responses to. I need ideas, I need people to reflect on my ideas.
My final project was a little bit of a stretch for me as I based it on a musical idea and I am not a musician. Also, I confess, I saw this app on Facebook (not the actual app, but rather just a video of someone using the app, then I discovered what the app was, then started thinking of how it could be used in school.) I realize this is a backward way to work but that is just the life of a techie sometimes 🙂 What I love about this rhythm lesson is the creative part. Yes, it involves technical skills (learning to use the app) but I can picture the students in the classroom really getting into the creation aspect and having a blast. These are my favorite technology lessons, those that do something not possible without the tech but that embed it so that you don’t think much about the tech. This lesson lets students use the tech but not not “for tech’s sake” but rather for music’s sake!
I had a few other ideas for this lesson. Initially I wanted to do a lesson built on this idea of “100 years – 100 faces”. Over the course of a few week students would collect 100 photos of people of 100 different ages. This media project could involve almost endless variety since you could make it revolve around culture, language, health, etc. Simply telling the stories of the people though the photos could be so powerful. Obviously this one is not totally hashed out and is more of a unit plan than a single lesson so I put that one on hold and decided to go with this music lesson.
I wanted to thank Dana and Gary for their excellent work on this course. It was great to have dedicated time to be with teachers and talk about the impact of tech on our professional lives. Thanks to you both for a job well done! My work in this course certainly does not represent my best work, not even close, but in the real world most of my time is dedicated to the daily part of my “day job”!
Research online collaborative projects that you might be able to use in your classroom. Write a blog post reflecting on how technology is changing the learning landscape and global education.
Okay so this video is a little old but well worth watching if you have not seen it. I’d like to do an “Ignite Delhi”!
I have been listening to Ben Howard lately. Libby showed me a video one night of a guy doing amazing stuff on a mountain bike. The background music was by Ben and I have been listening to him ever since.
Wow, what a redeeming thing to read. Geeking out is actually a good thing! Geeks around the world will love to know that modern scientific research has proven that they need to be spending more time hanging out, messing around, and geeking out.
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I like the reminder from the contructivism article that the half life of knowledge is diminishing. Also again it is fascinating that we are blogging, which according to the article on the new Bloom’s taxonomy is at the lowest level. That is why I tried to be creative in my post this week 😉
There was another thought voiced by a student that being creative in school “does not count” since you are doing it for a grade. That is an interesting phenomenon I have witnessed myself. I think that is part of why the outside trips (WOW and mini-courses) are so life changing for students. They help a student get out of the “grade” circle and just “perform” at life!
When are we going to quit using a picture of the diskette as a “save” icon? Diskettes are long gone. Does anyone have a suggestion for a replacement? Will it just be an icon from here on and we will continue to use it even though the upcoming generation does not know what a diskette is?
Okay I love technology but I don’t buy every new gadget that comes out. I am too thrifty for that. But this is a device I am really interested in. There were lots of tablets that came out during the CES in Las Vegas last week but this one is pretty cool. I have been following the Notion Ink blog for a year now, ever since they went public. A friend of mine, Jon Stocksdale, told me about the Adam back in the beginning and I have been hooked ever since. Check out the Notion Ink Adam here: http://www.notionink.com . One of my other favorites from CES this year was the Motorola Atrix. I have never been a Motorola fan, but this new Android smartphone looks awesome. A smartphone that “converts” into a laptop (okay so it is basically just a web browser) is something I really need to see in person.
I had a blast the other night sleeping out in the yard with the kids. We did a fire and smores (thank babe for getting the supplies) and then the kids and I slept in the old Eureka Alpine Meadows. Man that tent smells “tenty”. I plan to do a few more fires this winter as the kids loved it and I did too!
My kids love the stuff. Mmmmm sweet buttery salty corny all rolled into one 8 QAR cup.
$.02 